Willard Wigan – Micro Sculptures

5th September 2017

Yeti are making an arts film for Channel 4 that takes us into the wonderful world of Willard Wigan, a record-breaking micro-sculptor from Birmingham.

Wigan painstakingly hand-crafts microscopic artworks from tiny fragments virtually invisible to the naked eye. Some of his creations can only be seen through a microscope, and he’s made the world’s smallest ever sculpture – a gold motorbike inside a single piece of beard stubble – measuring 0.16 of a millimetre. Using hand-made tools made from insect claws and human eyelashes, Wigan slows down his breathing and heart-rate to make his miniscule figures. But though his art is tiny, the price tags are huge. He’s working on a £500,000 watch and a million pound painting, and his sculptures command upwards of £40,000 each. In this, Wigan’s first TV documentary, we’ll explore the remarkable craft behind these mini masterpieces and the people who buy them, as he embarks on his most ambitious project to date.